The purpose of the U.S. Department of Education (ED) Civil Rights Data
Collection (CRDC) is to obtain data related to the nation's public school districts
and elementary and secondary schools’ obligation to provide equal educational
opportunity. To fulfill this goal, the CRDC collects a variety of information,
including student enrollment and educational programs and services data that
are disaggregated by race/ethnicity, sex, limited English proficiency, and
disability. The CRDC is a longstanding and important aspect of the Department’s
Office for Civil Rights (OCR) overall strategy for administering and enforcing
the civil rights statutes for which it is responsible. This information is
also used by other ED offices as well as policymakers and researchers outside
of ED.

2. Under what authority does the Department conduct the CRDC?

The CRDC is a mandatory data collection, authorized under the statutes and regulations
implementing Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IX of the Education
Amendments of 1972, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and under
the Department of Education Organization Act (20 U.S.C. § 3413). The regulations
implementing these provisions can be found at 34 CFR 100.6(b); 34 CFR 106.71;
and 34 CFR 104.61.

3. When was the CRDC first conducted?

The CRDC was first conducted in 1968.

4. How are school districts chosen for the CRDC?

The 2011-12 CRDC will collect data from a universe of all public schools and
school districts, including juvenile justice facilities, charter schools, alternative
schools, and schools serving students with disabilities. The last
time that the CRDC was collected from a universe of schools and school districts
was in 2000. The 2002, 2004, 2006 and 2009-10 CRDCs collected data from a sample
of school districts.

5. How are the data in the CRDC collected?

School districts have the option of providing their data through a web-based
survey or through submitting an electronic file. Some state education agencies
provide all the CRDC data for the school districts in their state.

6. What changes have occurred to the CRDC?

There are several important changes that began with the 2009-10 CRDC:

All data collected are from the same school year. (Previously the CRDC
included data from the current and previous school years.)

There were important changes to what is being collected.

New data items were added to the 2009-10 CRDC. These new data items will
also be collected by the 2011-12 CRDC.

One new data item was added for the 2011-12 CRDC. The 2011-12 CRDC will
also collect data on preschool suspensions and expulsions.

Where feasible, the CRDC uses data that districts already provide to
states, and that states then provide to the Department through EDFacts instead
of collecting those items again through the CRDC.

The following is a list of the data that the 2011-12 CRDC will collect. Unless
otherwise indicated, all student data is disaggregated by race/ethnicity, sex,
disability, and LEP status.

PART 1

School level

School characteristics, such as grades offered, whether the school is a
special education, magnet, alternative or charter school, number of single
sex academic courses (by content area), and whether students are ability
grouped for English/Math (not disaggregated);

8. Which data for the CRDC are being collected through other data
collections in ED?

To reduce the burden on LEAs, the CRDC no longer collects disaggregated school
data on the number of students served under the IDEA by disability category
or educational environment. Instead, the CRDC uses the data that LEAs submitted
to the applicable state education agency (SEA) for the purpose of reporting
required data under the IDEA. Likewise, high school completer data was no longer
collected by the CRDC because ED already collects that data from SEAs through
the EDFacts collection.